Wreckless (3 page)

Sometimes it took days before the smell came off. It hung around - in her car, her clothes, her hair. Commanding her to never forget.

Never forget.

As if she would.

She touched the inside of her right forearm where the long, thin, jagged scar mocked her. If ever she were in danger of forgetting, she only had to look at her arm to remember. Remember the—

“Hi there, Miss Mayfield. Lord, is it Friday already? The days sure are flying, aren’t they?” The buxom black nurse with the salt and pepper hair who worked the evening shift frowned at the calendar on the counter.

“Yes, they are. But it’s not Friday. I have to go out of town, so I decided to come a day early.” Lexi summoned a smile and approached the desk. “I won’t stay long.”

“Oh, okay. I thought I was going out of my mind. That, or getting old, which I am, no doubt there. Well, go right on through. There’s been no change, unfortunately. But our prayers will be answered one of these days, I’m sure of it.” Her smile was benign as she came round the counter and fell into step beside Lexi.

“Thank you.”

The older woman laid a hand on her arm. “No, child, don’t thank me. I think your devotion has helped a whole lot. The family should be thanking you.”

You wouldn’t say that if you knew. Your smile would turn into a sneer if you only knew the truth.
She said nothing. Only nodded and accompanied Nurse Simpson to the last door along the quiet corridor.

She hesitated. When the nurse motioned her inside and departed, Lexi closed the door behind her and approached the bed, the familiar, harrowing, feelings of guilt, sadness and regret, eating away like deadly acid inside her.

Drawing level with the bed, she placed her bag on the floor, pulled up the chair and sat down, never once taking her eyes off the prone form covered with the thin hospital sheet.

She reached out and curled her fingers gently over the open hand resting on the bed.

“Hi, it’s Lexi,” she whispered as hot tears clouded her eyes.

She’d imagined her tears would’ve dried up by now, but apparently not. Tears choked her every time she came to the hospital. Some would call it just penance for her sins. But Lexi didn’t mind the tears; she welcomed them in fact. At least it showed she was still alive, somewhere deep inside the hollow, numb automaton she had become.

As usual, there was no movement from the bed. The only sounds in the room - the beeping of the heart monitor and the rise and fall of the ventilator - gave what little reassurance it could, that somewhere within the still, pale body on the bed, a spark of life remained.

She sat in silence. She’d given up praying a long time ago. After months of feverishly reciting every prayer she’d ever learned and making up reams of her own, all to no avail, she’d reached the conclusion that prayers were useless. All she could do was be here, infuse what little dregs of hope she had through her touch, her presence.

After what seemed like only a few minutes, she heard voices outside the door. She squinted at her watch and, with a jolt, realized two hours had passed.

Oh God, she couldn’t have been here that long! Tension gripped her already stiff shoulders, and she turned toward the door, dread rising as it opened.

At the sight of the figure framed in the doorway, Lexi froze.

Bloody hell.

She’d really hoped to avoid this particular confrontation.

Before she could adjust to the situation or even think up a greeting, the woman approached and snapped, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Lexi folded her hands in her lap. “Same thing you are, I think.”

“But it’s Thursday. We agreed on the days we would visit. Thursdays are my days. So what the fuck are you doing here?” Her so-familiar eyes flashed green fire as she quickly pulled a swathe of shoulder length dark hair to cover the left side of her face.

Lexi’s heart twisted at the gesture. “Look, Cara, I don’t want any trouble. I’m sorry I encroached on your time. I hadn’t intended on staying this long. I only came because I have to go out of town—”

The part of Cara’s face she could see contorted in a withering sneer. “Fleeing back to jolly ole England, are you? Leaving us to pick up the pieces you broke our lives into.”

“No! I’m not going back to London. I have to go to Vegas for a few days.”

The sneer intensified. “It’s good for some, isn’t it? Today Las Vegas, tomorrow New York, the next Aspen.” Cara towered over her and Lexi felt hate wash over her in sickening waves.

“I have to go because it’s my job. I’ll only be gone for a few days. Next week we can resume our normal routine, and you won’t have to see me. I was leaving anyway, so I need not disturb your visit.” She gave the hand on the bed one last squeeze and rose.

As she passed her, Cara grabbed her arm in a tight, painful hold, forcing Lexi to stop. “How can you remain so calm? I know you English have that stiff upper lip thing going on, but this is sick. Don’t you feel even an ounce of remorse for what you did?”

Dry, shocked laughter escaped Lexi. “How can you say that? Would I be here if I didn’t? I tried to talk to you after—after what happened, but you refused to talk to me. If you would just talk to me, Cara—”

Her arm was forcefully thrust away. “I have nothing to say to you. Not after what you did. I told you, I never want to see you again. You make me sick! In the future, if you’re going to change the visiting arrangements, inform the nursing staff so they can tell me. Now, get the fuck outta here!” She turned her back on Lexi and walked to the bed.

Lexi picked up her bag, raw pain slicing through her. At the door, she paused. Cara leaned over the bed and took the hand she herself had held for the last two hours. For the sake of her sanity, she decided to give it one last try.

“Cara—”

She rounded on her. “Are you deaf? I told you I have
nothing
to say to you,” she spat with enough venom to make Lexi gasp.

Cara turned back to the bed, her voice gentling dramatically. “Fiona, it’s Cara. I’m here, sweetheart. I’ve come to see you.”

Lexi choked back her sobs and stumbled out the door. The pale hospital walls receded as memories crashed through her head like giant waves.

Twelve months. Or to be exact, eleven months, three weeks and one day, since the crash that had ripped four lives and families apart.

She tore down the hall, the echo of her heels taking her back…back…

London...the night of the bachelorette party…four giggling women getting into Lexi’s Beetle…Lexi secretly pleased they all lived relatively close together so she could drop them all off and still make it to Enzo’s house within the half hour.

Was that why she’d been going a tad over the speed limit? Probably.

All she knew was that none of them had made it home that night.

The last thing she remembered was turning into the road leading to the apartment Cara shared with Ian, her panic at the blinding lights of the truck that loomed out of nowhere…on the wrong side of the road… She remembered the screams, the horrible screams, before everything turned black.

She’d come out of a hazy fog by the roadside, propped up on the ambulance gurney. The policeman instructed her to blow into the Breathalyzer. Numbly, she’d complied, all the while staring with displaced horror at the remains of what used to be her car. 

The rear had completely disappeared, the front seats held together by a precarious tangle of metal. She’d watched a tow truck lift the twisted heap onto its platform with a detached sense of shock.

But as it’d driven past her, and she’d spied Fiona’s diamante-studded right shoe dangling from the mangled pile, she’d lost it, her hysterical screams ripping through the converged crowd. She’d felt a pinprick in her arm, before everything had once again gone mercifully blank.

She’d woken up in the hospital, her right arm in a tight bandage, and her left wrist handcuffed to the bed, while a policeman stood guard at the foot of her bed.

He’d instructed her to blow into a similar gadget as the Breathalyzer and calmly informed her that Sally was dead.

She’d died instantly, having taken the major brunt of the collision to the rear left hand side of the car. Fiona, who’d been beside Sally, was in surgery fighting for her life. Cara, although she’d suffered head injuries, was out of immediate danger, but in intensive care.

As for her, by some freak of nature, she’d escaped with nothing more than minor injuries to the right arm she’d thrown up to cover her face as the windshield glass shattered. The drunk driver of the truck had also escaped injury.

She’d been released three hours later after a severe grilling from the policeman who’d taken her statement and ordered her to report to the station the next day. Her request to see her friends had been denied, what with Fiona still in surgery and Cara allowed only one visitor, her brother, for the moment.

Fleetingly, as she absorbed news of Sally’s death, she’d wondered why Enzo hadn’t come to see her. She’d berated herself. At that moment, his sister needed him more than she did. She’d see him the next day when the dust had cleared a little. But it’d still hurt that he hadn’t come to find out how she was.

As it’d turned out, fate had other plans for her. Technically and lawfully, the accident had been the fault of the truck driver, but she’d known she was also to blame, that she’d never be free of it. If she hadn’t taken that fiery swig of the cosmo, hadn’t been in such a hurry to drop the girls off and see Enzo, things would’ve been different. And for that mistake, Fate demanded she serve a life sentence for one moment of foolishness.

Mired in the darkest moments of her past, Lexi staggered out into the early evening air. A small eddy of dust blew past and brought her back to the present. She stopped on the sidewalk, blinked back her tears, and clenched her hands to stop their trembling. The wind whipped her hair over her face, and she caught the smell - the dreaded hospital scent - in her nostrils.

Jump-started by the stench, she tore through her handbag, frantic in her hunt for her keys. Grabbing them, she ran to her car, yanked open the door and threw her bag on the passenger seat.

She’d just twisted the key in the ignition when a hand rapped on the window.

Startled, she glanced up and found Cara next to her car, hatred still simmering in her green eyes. With apprehension, Lexi lowered her window.

“I came to remind you of your other promise. Just in case you’ve forgotten it like you forgot what day it was today.”

Almost immediately, guilt churned in Lexi’s stomach. Guilt and resentment for what Cara had made her promise six months ago when she’d arrived in LA.

A promise she’d had no business demanding of her. And one Lexi shouldn’t have sworn to keep.

Her shoulders slumped with the weight of her disappointment.

She’d hoped Cara had come after her for something else. Like a willingness to listen to Lexi’s part in what had happened. But no. She’d come to twist the knife further.

“I haven’t forgotten Cara. Believe me, I haven’t forgotten anything,” she replied. Then drove away.

Lexi let herself into her sixth floor condo in downtown Santa Monica, grateful for its cool serenity. Her bag landed on the polished hardwood floor. She lobbed her keys onto the nearby coffee table, and headed straight for her bedroom, removing her wraparound dress as she went. She needed a shower like she needed her next breath. Three-inch heels came off next to the case she’d packed for her trip to Vegas in the morning. Lexi paused long enough to slip out of her panties and bra.

The scalding shower was a welcome, cleansing relief, turned on full blast in the hopes of scouring away the turmoil within. She lathered more shampoo than was necessary into her hair, scrubbed vigorously until her scalp tingled, then repeated the process twice, before finally turning the water to tepid and then cool. After switching it off, she wrapped herself in a large, fluffy towel.

Tying another smaller towel around her head, she re-entered her bedroom and paused when her gaze landed on the cards on her dresser.

The big 3-0 had arrived last month and, save a couple of well-wishing cards and calls from one or two friends in London and her grandmother in Edinburgh, she’d passed the day alone in her condo, by herself, with Chinese take-out and a can of soda. She’d refused the free bottle of wine from the delivery guy, who announced cheerfully that it came compliments of the house, seeing as it had been her twentieth order.

He’d been taken aback by her refusal. After all, who refused a freebie, even if it was cheap plonk?

How was he to know she didn’t drink anymore? That not a single drop of alcohol had passed her lips in almost a year? How could he tell that the woman who ordered
Kung Pow
chicken and shredded beef noodles every Wednesday night without fail now lived her life by a series of vows? The very first being that, for Fiona’s sake, for Cara's, but most of all for Sally's precious memory, she’d vowed to spend the rest of her life sober, seeing everything in crystal clarity, lest another stupid alcohol-fuelled decision wrecked another life.

Sally. Oh God, Sally!
Hot tears filled her eyes and she sank onto her bed. Saying goodbye to her childhood friend had been one of the hardest things Lexi had ever done. A double blow, considering she’d been banned from Sally’s funeral by her parents, who laid the blame for their daughter’s death squarely at Lexi’s feet. They’d even refused to speak to her after discovering from the police report how close she’d been to the drink-driving limit. She shuddered as she recalled Sally’s father thick, pain-filled rant that
she
should have died, not his daughter.

On the day of Sally’s funeral, she’d waited in her car for hours, just to be sure everyone had left before going to her friend’s graveside. There she’d said goodbye, and made her vow never to touch another drop of liquor for as long as she lived. So far she’d kept that promise. That particular promise had been easy to keep.

As for the other promise, the one Cara had reminded her of half an hour ago…